The Grey Cairns of Camster: Neolithic tombs in the Caithness moor

In a lonely stretch of peat moorland in Caithness, in the far north of the Scottish Highlands, two great mounds of stone rise from the heather near the scattered settlement of Upper Camster. These are the Grey Cairns of Camster, among the oldest built structures in Scotland, raised by Neolithic farmers more than five thousand years ago.

Two ancient tombs

The site consists of two chambered cairns standing apart on the moor. Camster Round is a circular mound about eighteen metres across with a single chamber, while Camster Long stretches some sixty metres and contains two burial chambers. Built between roughly 3700 and 3000 BC and used over many generations, they were excavated in the 19th and 20th centuries, revealing human remains, burnt bones, pottery and tools, and later carefully restored.

Stepping inside

One of the joys of a visit is that you can crouch through the low, narrow passages into the dark, corbelled chambers at the heart of the cairns, a rare chance to enter a tomb built before the pyramids of Egypt. The bleak beauty of the Flow Country all around only deepens the sense of stepping back in time.

How to visit

The cairns lie a few miles up a minor road off the A99, roughly thirteen kilometres south of Wick and north of Lybster, with a car park and an open-access path; they are cared for by Historic Environment Scotland.